Search
Watercraft Home

Buckeye Boater

...Providing News and Insights to All Ohio’s Boaters       January 2008

Education Grants Top $360,000 This Year

Learning about lifejacketsMore Ohio schoolchildren and special needs youth will be introduced to boating thanks to grant funding from the ODNR Division of Watercraft. The Division awarded 33 recipients a total of $364,417 in grants to help fund boating safety education programs during 2008. The grant awards range from a low of $1,623 to a high of $27,177 and include a number of organizations devoted to youth education.

Many of the programs funded by these grants serve adults as well as children, but local entities recognize boating as a recreational opportunity that is fundamentally valuable in getting kids to be active as well as giving them the opportunity to make a connection to the outdoors and practice life skills.

"The perfect opportunity to introduce boating safety to youth is during their first experience with boating. They need and want to feel safe -- so being safe comes naturally," says Mary Hughes, grant program administrator for the Division of Watercraft.

The Division continues to support these efforts by awarding boating safety education grants each year. The grant packet is typically available in the summer with an applicant workshop in September and the due date in late October. After grants are announced, there is a workshop for the recipients on how to adminster the grant.

"Because we have to be accountable for how we spend money, so do our grant recipients," says Hughes. "That's why we suggest a lot of pre-planning, and why we have the workshops we do. If you know what type of information we'll need from you at the end of the year, it's easier to know what you need to keep track of."

Money for the Boating Safety Education Grant Program is provided through the Ohio Waterways Safety Fund, which comprises a share of the state motor fuels tax, watercraft registration and titling fees, and funding from the U.S. Coast Guard.

The deadline for the 2009 grant application is October 24, 2008. The workshop to help grant applicants is in Columbus on September 18. See "Grants" link above for more information.